This is Sparta!

Interview with the Manchester Village Spartans:

Sporting activities are one of the most popular past times in the UK with around 16.5% of the adult population (16 and over) in England actively participating in a sport three times a week. But sporting activities are often viewed as being occupied primarily by heterosexuals, with very few openly gay sports stars there still appears to be a taboo lingering over homosexuality and sports. So this month I was lucky enough to meet with the Manchester Village Spartans who go completely against the grain. With a team full of openly gay players, they can regularly be found in a scrum on the playing field participating in one of the manliest sports around, rugby. The Spartans formed in the late 1990s and are still going strong today regularly competing in competitions around the world. I met with them at their training ground in Sale where I talked to team captain Matt Whiteley, coach Elaine Vassie and players Dave Lacey, Gareth Longley and Alex Smith, where I hoped to find out more about what they had coming up, which included such things as the Union and Bingham cups, whether the team had ever experienced any negative reactions towards them and to get a general insight into what it was like being both gay and in an openly gay rugby team.

So are you excited with what's coming up with the union cup in Amsterdam?

Gareth - Yeah its going to be a great opportunity for us to get away and see some of the other gay teams and play in a competition that's quite difficult but quite fun afterwards with all of the other gay teams so yeah I'm really looking forward to it. 

Matt - Absolutely its always good fun going on tour with the boys and I think Amsterdam should have some of its own fun to show us so I think the tour itself will be pretty amazing, and there's the rugby side of it as well you know every two years you get together with all the other European teams so we've got a point to prove, we kind of want to come out on top on the pitch and then have a bloody good time as well.

Elaine - Yeah absolutely.

And how are you training for that?

Elaine - Well we are towards the end of the season at the moment so we've been working a lot on the structure we want to put in place for the union cup in terms of how they play so just developing some of the strategies so looking at what works well for us at the moment and hopefully exploit that a little bit more, and getting the lads to use those scenarios and those calls so that when we hit the union cup hopefully we are on the front foot.

Dave - The main training will come after we finish the season so in a couple of weeks time, and we will train two maybe three times a week, it's a good opportunity to do something a bit different from what we've done during the year, we don't get to play any gay teams during the season so it's a bit of a chance to let our hair down, not too much because there is rugby to play but it's a chance of winning a bit of silverware as well. 

So do you play gay teams or straight teams?

Dave - No we play straight teams during the season then the cup competitions that we play, the union and Bingham cup are gay teams.

Alex I've heard you've had a lot to do with getting the Bingham cup brought to Manchester can you tell me about that?

Alex - The Bingham cup is the gay rugby world championship its about a thousand players, 35 teams its one of the largest amateur rugby events in the world its held every two years and we started bidding for it three years ago. We were bidding against Sydney and unlike Manchester's bid for the Olympics which was up against Sydney we won the bid for the Bingham cup so its coming here to Manchester in 2012.

Are you all excited and looking forward to it?

Alex - Yeah I'm very excited about it but I'm also apprehensive, we've got a lot of work to do to get everything in place to put it on.

Dave - Yeah it'll be really nice to have a home Bingham cup, we've travelled a fair bit in the past, the first one I played in was London which wasn't too bad, then it was New York and then Dublin and then last year it was Minneapolis, so we do get around.

Matt - Yeah the Bingham cup will be amazing its such a massive event, you're talking about a thousand rugby players from 15 different countries and thirty odd different clubs all coming to Manchester so it's a massive event and I'm really pleased to be having it in the city, it was a lot of hard work winning the bid so we've got to make sure we put on an amazing event, on and off the field so we've got lots of entertainment and kind of amazing things lined up for the people who come and for spectators and then the team, we need to make sure we go out there and perform and do as well as we can you know. We're are really looking for a top four finish if not to take home a bit of silverware.

Alex, you said there's still a lot to get sorted, what do you have to get done before the Bingham cup?

Alex - We've got to do all sorts of things, we've got to get venues booked for opening and closing parties, we have to get playing fields booked we have to get referees, we have to get sponsorship, we have to get a website for everyone to register on, so a lot of these things are in plan and all of these things are starting to come together, so there's a lot work but we're really lucky we've got a lot of support from a lot of the tourist organisations here in Manchester and in particular we've got a lot of support from the RFU who are very interested in helping put on an event of this size.

As a gay team playing straight teams have you ever experienced any issues from any of their supporters or players?

Dave - Very minor stuff probably when we were in the tougher league a couple of seasons ago, two and a half seasons ago but nothing, generally rugby is a pretty tolerate sport we tend not to get anything. I think it definitely seems an incentive when they play us because nobody wants to get beaten by the poofs but you generally find they're pretty sound after a game.

Gareth - There's the occasional bit of banter but most of it is made in jest, there are occasionally one or two individuals on teams that do make it a bit more than that, especially when they get frustrated and they're losing to us they might say things like we're not losing to this bunch of poofs or what ever, but we don't take it in any malice really. Unless anybody is homophobic to us we don't make an issue of it and most teams really receive us quite well in the league and we've been playing in the league now for over five/six years so most of them know who we are and aren't really that bothered and just want to play rugby.

Matt - Not really no, you get a little bit of banter but you'd expect that what ever team you were on, you know if I was big and tall or short and fat or something like that I'd expect someone to be saying something to me, you know there's always going to be a bit of banter and most of it's in good humour, I think there have been a couple of very isolated incidents  over the 11 years which probably crossed the line but nothing I'm going to start crying about to be honest. I think teams we play against now know that we're about the rugby and that we're about being competitive and beating them at their own game,  I think increasingly over time there's become less of a problem.

Is there any thing you would like to say to any young people who want to join sports teams but feel they can't because of their sexuality?

Dave - You just have to make an effort, it can be really nerve racking and quite embarrassing to start with I know when I first came down I was looking for a gay football team but there wasn't anything and I didn't know anything about rugby, some would argue I still don't. I just stumbled upon the Spartans website and thought I'll go down came along and it was very very nerve racking but you kind of start to get to know people and you get over it pretty quickly, you meet some great people along the way and it's a chance to be a part of something which a lot of gay lads wont really have been used to, certainly not when I was in school. I just found I was in my early thirties and thought I'd like to do some team sport, stumbled across the Spartans and its seven years now. It's a bit frightening but its very very good, it's a chance to be part of something kind of a bit bigger than you usually get the opportunity to.

Gareth - Yeah I played rugby from being a teenager up until about 18 and then I went to university and I stopped playing at university because I came out and I didn't think being gay was conducive to playing rugby at the same time, and I think just try and get involved with a gay club if you're not happy about going to a straight team. We are very supportive it's good fun and a great way to meet new people and if you love rugby just get involved, and that goes for most sports as well there are gay clubs throughout the country doing things from squash and tennis all the way through to rugby and wrestling, so get involved.

Matt - I think it can be a pretty life changing experience. It's being part of a team sports environment, it's a massive amount of fun, the social side of it is brilliant, if you enjoy sport then you'll definitely enjoy playing rugby.

Have you enjoyed your time on the team?

Matt - Absolutely yeah, well I've been captain for 6 of them so I guess I must enjoy it some way or the other.

Gareth - Yeah it's the best thing I've done since moving to Manchester. I moved to Manchester not knowing any gay people at all and then I joined the club and instantly I had 30,40,50 friends to go out with on a weekend and also play rugby with which is the main reason I joined.

Alex - Oh yeah absolutely it's a major part of my life I really enjoy it, my partner is also involved he's the finance director for the Bingham cup 2012 he also plays in tournaments etc so yeah it's a major part of our lives and yeah I'll be honest I absolutely adore it.

Dave - Yeah, definitely.

Elaine - Yeah, I love it they're great bunch of lads.